De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.

  1. The bolts of thunder, then, must be conceived
  2. As all begotten in those crasser clouds
  3. Up-piled aloft; for, from the sky serene
  4. And from the clouds of lighter density,
  5. None are sent forth forever. That 'tis so
  6. Beyond a doubt, fact plain to sense declares:
  7. To wit, at such a time the densed clouds
  8. So mass themselves through all the upper air
  9. That we might think that round about all murk
  10. Had parted forth from Acheron and filled
  11. The mighty vaults of sky- so grievously,
  12. As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome might,
  13. Do faces of black horror hang on high-
  14. When tempest begins its thunderbolts to forge.
  15. Besides, full often also out at sea
  16. A blackest thunderhead, like cataract
  17. Of pitch hurled down from heaven, and far away
  18. Bulging with murkiness, down on the waves
  19. Falls with vast uproar, and draws on amain
  20. The darkling tempests big with thunderbolts
  21. And hurricanes, itself the while so crammed
  22. Tremendously with fires and winds, that even
  23. Back on the lands the people shudder round
  24. And seek for cover. Therefore, as I said,
  25. The storm must be conceived as o'er our head
  26. Towering most high; for never would the clouds
  27. O'erwhelm the lands with such a massy dark,
  28. Unless up-builded heap on lofty heap,
  29. To shut the round sun off. Nor could the clouds,
  30. As on they come, engulf with rain so vast
  31. As thus to make the rivers overflow
  32. And fields to float, if ether were not thus
  33. Furnished with lofty-piled clouds. Lo, then,
  34. Here be all things fulfilled with winds and fires-
  35. Hence the long lightnings and the thunders loud.
  36. For, verily, I've taught thee even now
  37. How cavernous clouds hold seeds innumerable
  38. Of fiery exhalations, and they must
  39. From off the sunbeams and the heat of these
  40. Take many still. And so, when that same wind
  41. (Which, haply, into one region of the sky
  42. Collects those clouds) hath pressed from out the same
  43. The many fiery seeds, and with that fire
  44. Hath at the same time inter-mixed itself,
  45. O then and there that wind, a whirlwind now,
  46. Deep in the belly of the cloud spins round
  47. In narrow confines, and sharpens there inside
  48. In glowing furnaces the thunderbolt.
  49. For in a two-fold manner is that wind
  50. Enkindled all: it trembles into heat
  51. Both by its own velocity and by
  52. Repeated touch of fire. Thereafter, when
  53. The energy of wind is heated through
  54. And the fierce impulse of the fire hath sped
  55. Deeply within, O then the thunderbolt,
  56. Now ripened, so to say, doth suddenly
  57. Splinter the cloud, and the aroused flash
  58. Leaps onward, lumining with forky light
  59. All places round. And followeth anon
  60. A clap so heavy that the skiey vaults,
  61. As if asunder burst, seem from on high
  62. To engulf the earth. Then fearfully a quake
  63. Pervades the lands, and 'long the lofty skies
  64. Run the far rumblings. For at such a time
  65. Nigh the whole tempest quakes, shook through and through,
  66. And roused are the roarings,- from which shock
  67. Comes such resounding and abounding rain,
  68. That all the murky ether seems to turn
  69. Now into rain, and, as it tumbles down,
  70. To summon the fields back to primeval floods:
  71. So big the rains that be sent down on men
  72. By burst of cloud and by the hurricane,
  73. What time the thunder-clap, from burning bolt
  74. That cracks the cloud, flies forth along. At times
  75. The force of wind, excited from without,
  76. Smiteth into a cloud already hot
  77. With a ripe thunderbolt.